On This Day: The first air raid

December 24th, 1914: A German seaplane carried out the first air raid on British soil, dropping bombs on Dover. There were no casualties.

The beginning  The first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft took place on December 17th, 1903 four miles South of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, USA. Two American engineers and aviation pioneers, Wilbur and Orville Wright, are generally credited with inventing, building, and successfully flying the world's first aeroplane.  Barely eleven years later and aircraft go to war.

The Zeppelin menace  In the early months of the Great War, senior figures in the Imperial German High Command favoured launching aerial attacks on Britain. They believed that bombing London, its docks, and the Admiralty building in Whitehall would cause panic in the civilian population, undermining morale and the British public's desire to continue the fight. Kaiser Wilhelm II, however, was reluctant to sanction air raids, particularly on London [1].

The first air raid  On Christmas Eve 1914, the first bomb to fall on British soil was dropped by a seaplane. It landed in a garden near Taswell Street, Dover exploding to leave a 10ft-wide crater and blew a gardener out of a tree. It is thought the bomb was intended for the nearby Dover Castle which at the time was once more in its history a military base.

Aftermath  Whether the raid is considered a success or not, the Kaiser eventually gave conditional approval for air raids by Zeppelin airships to commence on January 10th, 1915. Initially London was excluded as a target until May 31st, 1915, when the first raid on the capital took place. Over the course of the next wo years, German air raids reached Britain on fifty-nine occasions (forty-two by airship, seventeen by aeroplane). In the course of this campaign, airships attacked London eight times, and a Zeppelin attack on the capital on the night of September 8th/9th, 1915, caused the most material damage of any single air raid (estimated at £530,000). From The Imperial War Museum's records:

• Nearly 9,000 German bombs were dropped on British soil during attacks by 51 airships and 52 aeroplanes.

• A total of 1,412 people were killed and 3,408 were wounded.
• London suffered the most casualties, with 670 deaths and 1,962 people injured.

Endnotes:

1. Castle, I., (2016), 'London, Bombing of', 1914-1918-online: International Encyclopaedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin.

A Brief History of Foods: Coffee

Origins  Exactly how and when coffee was discovered is uncertain. A legend of its stimulating effects being identified in Ethiopia is probably just that - legend.

'Despite coffee bushes growing wild in highlands throughout Africa, from Madagascar to Sierra Leone, from the Congo to the mountains of Ethiopia, and may have been indigenous to Arabia, there is no evidence that coffee was known in the ancient Greek, Roman, Middle Eastern or African worlds' [1].

Several species of these bushes or shrubs of the genus Coffea produce the berries from which coffee is extracted. Today coffee beans, the seeds within the plant's fruits, are commercially cultivated from two Coffea species. The beans (seeds) are separated from the berries whereupon the raw product is known as 'green coffee'. To produce a consumable product, the beans are then roasted. The 'roasted coffee' beans can be ground into fine particles that are typically steeped in hot water before being filtered out to produce a cup of coffee.

Coffee cultivation and trade began on the Arabian Peninsula. By the 15th-century, coffee was being grown in the Yemeni district of Arabia and there is evidence of either coffee drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree in the Sufi monasteries of Yemen [1], which soon spread to Mecca and Medina. Coffee eventually reached the rest of the Middle East, South India (Karnataka), Persia, Turkey, India, and northern Africa before spreading to the Balkans, Italy, and to the rest of Europe, as well as Southeast Asia.

Coffee comes to Europe  Coffee was first introduced to Europe in Hungary when the Turks invaded Hungary at the Battle of Mohács in 1526. Within a year, coffee had reached Vienna by the same Turks who had fought the Europeans at the Siege of Vienna in 1529. Later in the 16th-century, coffee was introduced on the island of Malta. Turkish Muslim slaves imprisoned by the Knights of St John in 1565, the year of the Great Siege of Malta, were making their traditional beverage.

The vibrant trade between the Republic of Venice and the people of North Africa, Egypt, and the East brought a large variety of African goods, including coffee, to this leading European port. Venetian merchants introduced coffee-drinking to the wealthy in Venice, with the first European coffee house, aside from those in the Ottoman Empire and Malta, opening in Venice in 1645. In this way, coffee was introduced to the mainland of Europe.

Coffee houses  Over time coffee began to replace the common breakfast drink beverages of the time - beer and wine. Those who drank coffee instead of alcohol seemingly began the day alert and energized. The stimulating effect of coffee was quickly noted and coffee houses soon became centres of social activity and communication in the major cities of England, Austria, France, Germany and Holland. In England 'penny universities' appeared, so called because for the price of a penny one could purchase a cup of coffee and engage in stimulating conversation.

By the mid-17th century, there were over 300 coffee houses in London, many of which attracted like-minded patrons, including merchants, shippers, brokers and artists. Many businesses grew out of these specialized coffee houses. Lloyd's of London, for example, came into existence at the Edward Lloyd's Coffee House.

During the enlightenment, these early English coffee houses became gathering places for the frequenters to discuss religious and political views. This practice became so common, and potentially subversive, that Charles II made an attempt to crush coffee houses in 1675.

Today  Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world [2] and can be prepared and presented in, to some, a confusing array of ways (e.g., espresso, French press, caffè latte, or even pre-brewed canned coffee). Although usually served hot, chilled or iced coffee is a delicious alternative.

Today the coffea plant ranks as one of the world's most valuable and widely traded commodity crops. It is an important export product of several countries, including those in Central and South America, the Caribbean and Africa.

Endnotes:

1. Weinberg, B. A. and Bealer, B. K., (2001), The world of caffeine, London: Routledge, pp. 3-4.
2. Oder, T., (2015). 'How coffee changed the world', Mother Nature Network, Narrative Content Group (accessed December 15th, 2021).

On This Day: King excommunicated

December 17th, 1538: Henry VIII is excommunicated by Pope Paul III.

Henry brought religious upheaval to England.  When he became king, most people followed the teachings of the Catholic Church headed by the Pope in Rome. Like all kings at the time, Henry wanted a male heir, but his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, had not borne a surviving son. After 24 years of marriage Henry was determined to divorce her and take a new wife. The Roman Catholic Church frustrated Henry’s desire and refused to grant the divorce.

On November 3rd, 1534 Parliament passed the First Act of Supremacy confirming Henry as the head of the Church of England. This one act forced a break with the Catholic Church, allowed Henry to divorce Catherine, and led to the formation of the Protestant Church of England.

The Protestant movement was known as the Reformation. The land and riches of the Catholic Church, particularly the monasteries, became Henry's property and he sold off most of this land to dukes, barons and other noblemen. The Dissolution of the Monasteries broke the centuries long control of their powerful religious landowners.

On This Day: Catherine of Aragon born

December 16th, 1485: Catharine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII, was born in Alcala de Henares, Spain.

Like all kings at the time Henry Vlll wanted a son to rule after him. Henry was married six times before a son was born to his third wife, but let us meet Henry’s first queen.

Catherine of Aragon had previously been married to Henry's brother Prince Arthur. She was betrothed to Prince Henry by the latter’s father, Henry VII, in 1509. The couple married on June 11th, 1509 at Greenwich Palace, Kent. The couple had six children but only their daughter Mary, who would later be crowned Queen Mary 1, survived.

In 1527 Henry announced his desire to divorce Catherine because she had failed to produce a male heir. They were divorced on May 23rd, 1533. Catherine died in Kimbolton Castle on January 7th, 1536 and is buried in Peterborough Cathedral where it is not unusual to see pomegranates, a symbol from Catherine's coat of arms, laid on her grave. The Cathedral also commemorate Catherine’s death and burial each year with a special service and programme of events.

Paranormal thinking?

Somehow we got talking about ghosts a couple of days ago. We both were reminded of working at Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire and how it claimed to be one of the most haunted places in the UK. We both seemed to recall that Mary, Queen of Scots was one of those said to roam the grounds, but were we remembering correctly? Not only that, but wasn't Mary executed at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire? Why would she be haunting Tutbury some 75 miles distant?

We had to check. One of the first websites encountered was HauntedRooms.co.uk. Now this is primarily a hotel directory offering clients a 'chance to possibly experience something paranormal in some of the most haunted hotels throughout the UK', but they also rather usefully include some background on the locations they feature.

Case study: Tutbury Castle  Together with an apparition in a full suit of armour [1], a white lady, a little boy, and a small girl, the most famous of all the ghosts said to haunt Tutbury Castle is Mary, Queen of Scots. She was imprisoned at Tutbury on four separate occasions and is said to have despised Tutbury precisely because of the time she spent incarcerated there. So, armed with the description provided by HauntedRooms.co.uk, supplemented by 'Paranormal Eye UK', let's dissect what we 'know'.

A woman in white  In 2004, at approximately midnight, Mary was seen standing at the top of the South Tower wearing a full white Elizabethan gown and peering down at the 40+ men being guided round the Castle. When they saw her the men laughed assuming it was Castle curator, Leslie Smith, wearing a costume to play a prank. It was pointed out, however, that neither she nor any other staff member (in 2004 at least) possessed a white gown and therefore it would have been impossible for one of them to have been the figure. Reputedly, the men were profoundly disturbed by the experience, but what makes this story significant is that so many witnessed Mary's 'ghost'.

Comment: Or did they? If the witnesses did indeed see a woman, just how close were they, on a dark night, to be able to positively identify the figure as the Queen? Who knew what Mary actually looked like? Which, if any, of the witnesses was able to identify, at a distance and at night, that the figure was wearing 'a full white Elizabethan gown' and not some other voluminous dress? After all most of us would struggle to discern the differences between the outline shape of a Tudor gown and, say, a much later mid-Victorian period dress. Perhaps they were 'seeing', and thus describing, the type of garb that they might expect to see given the known association between Mary and the Castle. As to whether a member of staff possessed the correct period costume, we only have their word that no one did and that the whole scene was not 'staged' (for publicity?). We know, from our experience working at Tutbury in 2006, that the curator was keen to promote the 'haunted castle' angle and even led guided tours in reproduction Tudor costume. Comment ends.

Other sightings  To confuse things, the 'woman in white' also dresses in black if indeed it is the same figure who has been seen looking through the window of the Great Hall, often by people leaving the Castle in their cars. In 1984, a serving marine witnessed Mary, walking at an unusually fast pace across the grass on a hot afternoon. One summer she was reportedly seen by several senior members of staff at the Castle and by archaeologists who were carrying out an extensive 5-year dig. According to HauntedRooms.co.uk, the staff 'are quick to brush off anything paranormal about the castle'.

Comment: Promoting the haunted nature of the Tutbury has been a marketing ploy for many years. Leslie Smith, mentioned earlier and pictured right, was well known for her dramatic interpretations of Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, for which she donned replica costumes. Certainly in 2006 when we worked at Tutbury Castle, she was regularly hosting ghost hunt evenings, in character. We cannot help surmising that including the reference to the archaeologists may be intended to increase the credibility of the paranormal sightings. The implication perhaps being that their professional training, emphasising objectivity and the detective-like nature of examining the evidence, would not be so easily fooled. Comment ends.

Why Tutbury?  Queen Mary spent most of 1585 at her most hated castle, Tutbury, but in December of that year she was moved to Chartley Manor, a moated mansion near the ruins of Chartley Castle. It was while there that she became embroiled in The Babington Plot to assassinate the English Queen, Elizabeth I. Arrested for her involvement, Mary was briefly held in Tixall Hall in Staffordshire, the home of Sir William Aston, while her rooms at Chartley were searched. Between August and September 1586 she returned to Chartley Manor but, on Queen Elizabeth's orders, Mary was moved to Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire on September 21st. This medieval castle, the birthplace of King Richard III, was to be Mary, Queen of Scots final residence.

Fotheringhay's remote nature, surrounded by marshland, made rescue or escape difficult, an important consideration given that Mary was about to be tried for treason, after she had finally and firmly been  implicated in the Catholic conspiracy to depose and murder Queen Elizabeth. Unsurprisingly, the outcome of Mary’s trial in 1586 was a foregone conclusion, but it took Elizabeth several months before she agreed to sign the death warrant. England’s queen could not execute Mary without first considering the implications; not only an anointed queen, but Mary was Elizabeth’s own cousin. The inevitable happened and Mary was duly executed for treason at Fotheringhay Castle on February 8th, 1587.

Comment: Now we are confused. If Mary traumatic end took place in Fotheringhay Castle, why would she haunt Tutbury? We felt we needed to understand better what a 'haunting' meant. From an article in 2013, the website 'Psychic Source' offers three explanatory 'causes of a haunting':

1. Some believe that spirits come back from beyond the grave because they have unfinished business. It is often thought that ghosts who make their presence known need to get a message across, whether it's to their loved ones or people inhabiting their old homes.

 2. People who suffer traumatic or untimely deaths are believed to come back and haunt the area where they died. This belief may explain why locations where crimes such as murders have occurred are considered to be prime locations for paranormal activity.

3. In some instances, individuals believe that alleged spirits are trapped in specific locations because they are unaware that they are dead. People who died quickly or unexpectedly might not have grasped the concept of death. In turn, they may feel like they're still alive and fail to understand why new people are in their personal space.

It seems to us that the second explanation, possibly best described as a 'residual haunting' [2], ought to apply to Mary's demise. We both recalled a 'theory' that proposed 'energy generated by traumatic. emotional or tragic events imprints records of those events on nearby physical objects, typically stone...in much the same way that magnetic tape recording imprints data on magnetic tape' (Lucia, 2020). This so-called 'Stone Tape theory' is highly unscientific, however, and the label 'theory' is wholly inappropriate. It is really only an unproven idea and purely conjectural. As sceptics, it simply does not make sense and just how would it work? The 'indisputable truth is that there is no method, procedure, apparatus or gadget in existence which is capable of recording the data involved in residual haunting on stone, let alone recording it on said stone in a form which can be replayed over and over again' (Lucia, 2020). Comment ends.

So Mary haunts Fotheringhay?  Several macabre legends surround Mary’s beheading. When, for example, the executioner held the severed head by its hair to show onlookers the job was done, it became apparent that the queen had worn a wig – the hair came away in his hand and the head rolled across the floor. Given the nature of her violent end, however, Mary does not appear to haunt Fotheringhay Castle. Interestingly, however, on the way to her execution Mary descended the castle's great oak staircase; a staircase that in the 1620s was transferred to the Talbot Inn [now Talbot Hotel] in Oundle, four miles away, after Fotheringhay had fallen into ruins. The staircase can still be seen in the Talbot Hotel to this day, and tradition has it that, despite the change of venue, Mary's ghost can sometimes be seen descending its steps.

Comment: One might argue this is a version of the third explanation but if the definition is applied rigorously, the 'facts' as presented simply do not fit. Comment ends.

Conclusions?  By rights, if Mary, Queen of Scots was to haunt any location it ought to be Fotheringhay Castle, but apparently she does not. Instead Tutbury Castle is her preferred haunt. Believers in the paranormal may well point to the number of times Mary was incarcerated at Tutbury and that it was one of the places she disliked the most. The familiarity and emotion associated with Tutbury may be why Mary's ghost is drawn to the castle. But any such argument [3] does not fit with one of the three explanations presented above. So what are we left with seems to be either a 'ghost' haunting the wrong place or a skilful marketing opportunity - you decide. 

For us, the so-called 'theories' explaining ghostly apparitions are no more than pseudoscience, and by any reasoned examination make no sense at all. Clearly, Mary's case is an object lesson in 'paranormal' thinking.

Endnotes:

1. We know it's properly called a 'harness of plate' but that was not term used on the website.

2. According to Lucia (2020) from the website 'the Ghost in my Machine', The Psychic Library defines 'residual hauntings' as 'remnant[s] of past traumatic event[s] that happened at or near [a] location prior to someone's death'. The associated article 'How does it work? The Stone Tape Theory, residual hauntings, and the deep influence of memory and emotion' is well worth reading not only for an explanation of the terminology but also the arguments for and against of the 'Stone Tape theory' by both believers and sceptics.

3. This is very much a 'strawman' argument as no such position has been taken, to our knowledge, by anyone who believes in paranormal activity.

One finally note  We must point out that this is neither an attack on Tutbury Castle nor its current or former staff. We are certainly not suggesting that anyone connected with the Castle is actively trying to deceive. Instead, we know the value of a good story to being history to life, and ghost stories are some of the best. So, good luck to Tutbury Castle, one of Britain's most haunted places. We will remain, however, highly sceptical of 'paranormal' activity and the pseudoscience it attracts. But if you are a believer, that's fine.

Dispelling Some Myths: Sweeney Todd

Fact or Fiction?  Despite some believing he was a real person, the murderous ‘Barber of Fleet Street’, Sweeney Todd, is in fact an entirely fictional character who first appeared in a story titled ‘The String of Pearls: A Romance’. This iconic English villain was popularised in a Victorian penny dreadful [1], published in 18 weekly parts, in Edward Lloyd's The People's Periodical and Family Library. The original tale became a staple of Victorian melodrama and London urban legend. In it Todd murders his customers with his barber’s straight razor before handing over their bodies to Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime, who bakes their flesh into meat pies.

Authorship of the story is unknown, but in February or March 1847, before the serial was even completed, a minor 19th-century playwright, George Dibdin Pitt, adapted ‘The String of Pearls’ as a melodrama for the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton, East London. It was in this alternative version of the tale, rather than the original, that Todd acquired his catchphrase: ‘I'll polish him off’.

A Georgian tale  As today, and like many other works of historical fiction, 'The String of Pearls' employs an earlier age to explore current fears. The Industrial Revolution in England, which started in the 18th-century, saw many rural folk move from small villages or towns to the large cities, like London, Birmingham and Manchester. The populace shifted from growing its own food or buying from local farmers, bakers, and butchers to relying on third-party retailers. This disconnect led to uncertainty as to where their food came from. The rapid population increase in the urban centres also meant more mouths to feed leading to the unscrupulous adulterating of foods.

In the 19th-century there was an unmistakeable increase in the reported instances of adulterated foods. Some contemporary commentators ascribed this to lower ethical standards in business and government. Others attributed it to developments in the science of analytical chemistry. In simple terms advances in the microscope enabled chemists to better identify foreign substances in foods [3]. The widespread addition of alum to bread flour, for example, was confirmed by Dr A H Hassall, a physician who used the microscope to reveal adulterations to foods. His investigative reports, published in The Lancet in the early 1850s, went so far as to list the names and addresses of merchants guilty of the practice [4].

A capital crime  It is perhaps with the uncertainties about industrialisation in mind that some might interpret Sweeney Todd as symbolising the fear generated by such rapid change. In fact, the social and economic changes in the 18th-century saw the number of capital offences, punishable by death, grow to over 200. England’s law makers, the Members of Parliament (MPs), were all landed aristocracy increasingly scared by the rise in crimes threatening their property. It was believed that punishments should be as harsh as possible to deter people from committing the crime, remove the worst offenders through execution and provide retribution to victims. These changes were known as the Criminal, or Bloody, Code which, probably unintentionally, may have desensitised the populace to death and, ironically, incentivised murder. Clearly, some, like Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett, would have killed their victims regardless, but if petty criminals knew they faced execution for so many different crimes, then escalating to murder was explicable. Capital punishment as a deterrent simply failed to work in practice.

The story of Sweeney Todd has endured for over 250 years because it draws on primal fears and taboos. Within the tale is murder, the desecration of bodies, cannibalism, and being forced to participate in it unknowingly. Even today it amplifies fears about public health; is the food we eat safe? In more modern versions of the story even Mrs. Lovett’s chimney makes London more polluted. Ultimately, the fear of being attacked or murdered, with no one to help or even notice, makes ‘The String of Pearls’ a timeless horror story and Sweeney Todd a timeless villain.

And finally  If you are inspired by the story of Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett, then Hannah Glasse’s book ‘The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy’ [5] written in the reign of George II gives several recipes for pies such as this one for ‘A Beef Steak Pye’:

As to where you source the 'rump steak', we leave that entirely up to you...

Endnotes:

1. ‘Penny dreadfuls’ were stories published in weekly parts of between eight and sixteen pages, each costing one penny. They were very popular in nineteenth century Britain.
2. The People's Periodical and Family Library, Issues 7 to 24, were published from November 21st, 1846 to March 20th, 1847.
3. Hart, F.L., (1952), ‘A History of the Adulteration of Food Before 1906’, Food, Drug, Cosmetic Law Journal, Vol. 7, No. 1, Food and Drug Law Institute (FDLI), p. 13, Available on-line: http://www.jstor.org/stable/26654178 (accessed December 13th, 2021).
4. Op. cit., p. 16.
5. Hannah Glasse, (1747), ‘The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy’, Chapter VII ‘Of Pies’, Prospect Books, p. 71 (ISBN 978-1-903018-88-0).

Dispelling Some Myths: Would Medieval archers really shoot 12 arrows a minute?

‘Welsh & English longbowman used a single-piece longbow to deliver arrows that could penetrate contemporary plate armour and mail. The longbow was a difficult weapon to master, requiring years of use and constant practice. A skilled longbowman could shoot about 12 shots per minute. This rate of fire was far superior to competing weapons like the crossbow or early gunpowder weapons’ [1].

The shooting rate highlighted above is frequently asserted in television documentaries. Most recently two unconnected documentaries screened on UK television, both involving sequences on Mediæval archery, claimed 10 and 14 shots per minute respectively. Splitting the difference and one arrives at the 12 arrows stated above. This number also appears on many websites such as the one from which the above quote was drawn. The problem is that most, if not all, such claims are unreferenced, and the source of information is not mentioned. Moreover, our research has singularly failed to identify a historical source. We can only deduce that the shooting rate is a best guess at what might have been possible.

It is our understanding that levied archers were expected to provide for themselves two sheaves of arrows. At the rate of 10 to 12 arrows per minute, therefore, each archer would have shot all 48 of those they carried in less than 5 minutes of engaging the enemy. At this point it is worth quoting Strickland and Hardy (2006, 31): ‘the longbowman could shoot about ten a minute and more, though [master bowman Simon] Stanley says that with the heaviest bows he does not like to try for more than six a minute’, and argues that three a minute would still produce an “Agincourt result” [2][3].’

A typical military longbow archer would be provided with between 60 and 72 arrows at the time of battle. Arrows were not unlimited, however, so archers and their commanders took every effort to ration their use to the situation at hand. Nonetheless, resupply during battle was an option, with young boys often employed to ferry additional arrows to the archers’ positions on the battlefield. Furthermore, in contemporary images archers in battle are shown with arrows thrust through their belts and/or stabbed upright into the ground at their feet. Presumably this was an aid to reducing the time it took to ‘nock, draw and loose’. Yet, most archers would not shoot arrows at the maximum rate, as it would exhaust even the fittest, most experienced man. Not only do the arms and shoulder muscles tire from the exertion, but the fingers holding the bowstring become strained. The actual rates of shooting in combat, therefore, would vary considerably. Ranged volleys at the beginning of the battle - the so-called ‘arrow storm’ - would differ markedly from the closer, aimed shots as the battle progressed and the enemy neared.

Indeed, in tests against a moving target simulating a galloping knight it took approximately seven seconds to draw, aim and loose an armour-piercing heavy arrow using a replica war bow. In the seven seconds between the first and second shots, the target advanced 70 yards. The second shot occurred at such close range that, if it had been a realistic contest, then running away was considered the only option [3].

So, as to the hail of arrows, archers shooting heavy warbows confirm that releasing twelve arrows in one minute is possible, but that such a rate cannot be maintained subsequently. Practical experience argues for a shooting rate of about 5 to 6 arrows per minute being feasible over a period up to 10 minutes.

Endnotes:

1. Medieval Warfare website, ‘Mediæval Military Technology’, Available on-line: https://www.medievalwarfare.info/weapons.htm#bows (accessed October 29th, 2021).
2. Strickland, M. and Hardy, R., (2005), ‘The Great Warbow: From Hastings to the Mary Rose’, Sutton Publishing, p. 31.
3. Soar, H., Gibbs, J., Jury, C. & Stretton, M., (2010), ‘Secrets of the English War Bow’, Westholme, pp. 127-151.

On This Day: Tudor punishment

December 1st, 1581: Having been convicted of high treason, English Jesuit priest Edmund Campion was drawn through the streets of London, hanged and then quartered at Tyburn.

As a devout Catholic, Campion had been conducting an underground ministry in what was then officially Protestant England. Religion during Queen Elizabeth I's reign was a powder keg where one little spark could have plunged England into civil war. It is a rather complicated subject but here goes an attempt to explain what was going on.

Henry VIII's split with Rome  For many centuries the dominant religion in England, as with the rest of Europe, was Christianity as represented by the Catholic Church headed by the Pope in Rome. Elizabeth’s father, Henry Vlll, brought religious upheaval to England when the Catholic Church frustrated Henry’s desire and refused to grant him a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. In 1534 Henry passed a law making himself head of the Church of England. This one act precipitated a break with the Catholic Church, allowed Henry to divorce his wife, and led to the formation of the Protestant Church of England.

Edward VI  Although his father, Henry VIII, had severed the link between the Church and Rome, Henry VIII had never permitted the renunciation of Catholic doctrine or ceremony. It was during his son Edward VI's reign that Protestantism was established for the first time in England. With it came reforms that included the abolition of the Mass and clerical celibacy, meaning priests could marry, and the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer in 1549 which made compulsory services in English not Latin.

By 1553 it had became clear that Edward was suffering from tuberculosis and would not live long. John Dudley, by then Duke of Northumberland, was determined that England's religious reforms should not be undone, so he persuaded Edward to approve a new order of succession. This declared Edward's half-sister Mary illegitimate and that the throne would pass to Northumberland's daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey, a more distant descendant of Henry VIII. Edward's reign came to a premature end with his death on July 6th, 1553 aged just 15. Three days later Jane was acclaimed queen but her reign lasted only nine days until, with overwhelming popular support, her Catholic cousin Mary took the throne.

Mary I  A devout Catholic, daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon, Mary was determined to crush the Protestant faith in which her half-sister Elizabeth had been educated. Mary ordered that everyone attend Catholic Mass; Elizabeth had to outwardly conform. Mary's initial popularity ebbed away in 1554 when she announced plans to marry Philip of Spain, the son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and an active defender of the Catholic faith. Discontent spread rapidly through the country, and many looked to Elizabeth as a focus for their opposition to Mary's religious policies. Unsurprisingly this greatly endangered Elizabeth’s life.

Elizabeth  In 1558 upon Mary's death, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel. In government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and half-siblings had been. One of her mottoes was "video et taceo" ("I see but say nothing").

In religion, she was relatively tolerant and avoided a return to systematic persecution of those with different religious views. Elizabeth therefore sought a Protestant solution that would not offend Catholics too greatly while addressing the desires of English Protestants. As a result, the parliament of 1559 started to legislate for a church based on the Protestant settlement of Elizabeth’s half-brother, Edward VI, with the monarch as its head, but with many Catholic elements. For example, Elizabeth was raised a Protestant but, much as her father had done before, kept many Catholic symbols, such as the crucifix, and practices. Elizabeth and her advisers, however, were well aware of the threat of a Catholic crusade against heretical England. The Pope declared her illegitimate in 1570 and released her subjects from obedience to her. As a consequence, several conspiracies threatened Elizabeth’s life, but all were defeated with the help of her ministers' secret service.

High Treason  Enter Edward Campion. In 1580, the Jesuit mission to England began and Campion was fervently involved in ministering to England's Catholic minority. Campion's administering the sacraments and preaching to Catholics in Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Lancashire, and the publication of his pamphlet Decem Rationes ('Ten Reasons') arguing against the validity of the Anglican Church, were deemed threats to Elizabeth's reign. The hunt for Campion was stepped up until he was eventually captured preaching in Berkshire on July 15th, 1581. After four months of imprisonment, questioning and torture, on November 14th Campion was finally 'charged with having conspired, in Rome and Reims, to raise a sedition in the realm and dethrone the Queen.' Found guilty of treason, Campion and two fellow priests were sentenced to death by Lord Chief Justice Wray:

'You must go to the place from whence you came, there to remain until ye shall be drawn through the open city of London upon hurdles to the place of execution, and there be hanged and let down alive, and your privy parts cut off, and your entrails taken out and burnt in your sight; then your heads to be cut off and your bodies divided into four parts, to be disposed of at Her Majesty's pleasure. And God have mercy on your souls.'

Execution of the sentence  To be 'hanged, drawn and quartered' became a statutory penalty for men convicted of high treason in the Kingdom of England from 1352. The severity of the sentence was measured against the seriousness of the crime. As an attack on the English monarchy's authority, high treason was considered a deplorable act demanding the most extreme form of punishment aimed fully at discouraging others. Thus many English Catholic priests executed during the Elizabethan era were subjected to the law's ultimate sanction.

Once sentenced, the convicted were usually held in prison for a few days before being taken to the place of execution; in Campion's case Tyburn (now Marble Arch, London). But was he 'hung, drawn and quartered' as it is popularly expressed or 'drawn, hung and quartered'? Indeed, is there a 'correct' sequence (note the 19th-century sentence wording in the InfoBox below right)? Were we to rigidly follow Lord Wray's pronouncement then Campion would have been 'drawn, hanged, drawn (again) and quartered'. It seems to be the term 'drawn' that causes the confusion as it can mean both publicly dragged through the streets and/or removing the viscera or intestines of the victim (disembowelling).

During the High Middle Ages the convicted traitor may have been tied directly to the back of a horse. Later it became customary for the victim to be tied instead to a wicker hurdle, or wooden panel, that was itself fastened to and drawn behind a horse to the place of execution. There the traitor would be hanged, beheaded and quartered (chopped into four pieces). The victim's remains would often be displayed in prominent places across the country, such as London Bridge, to serve as a warning of the fate of traitors. Note that the personal pronoun 'he' is deliberately used in this context as, for reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burned at the stake.

Hanging almost to the point of death and the subsequent emasculation and disembowelment were, it seems, not necessarily the fate of most traitors. As historian and author Ian Mortimer argues [1]: 'the evisceration of a criminal does not appear to have been described as "drawing" before modern times.' While it certainly took place on many occasions, the presumption that drawing meant to disembowel is dubious. As Mortimer suggests: 'A more likely reason for "drawing" being often mentioned after "hanging" is because it was a supplementary aspect of the punishment...[D]eath was the main punishment, being "drawn" to the gallows like a traitor simply an added humiliation.'

And finally  Campion was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonised in 1970 by Pope Paul VI as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. His feast day is celebrated every 1st of December.

Endnotes:

1. Mortimer, I., (2010), Why do we say 'hanged, drawn and quartered?' (accessed December 1st, 2021).